Patient and sophisticated readers will find the story compelling and deeply moving and its heroine unforgettable.
The events of the Anglo-Cherokee War in 1759-60 in South Carolina are brought vividly to modern readers in a meticulously researched tale.
Seventeen-year-old Catriona suffers grievous losses when her parents and brother are murdered by fellow settlers in a raid meant to look like an attack by Cherokee warriors. She is determined not only to escape to a British fort, but to somehow bring the murderers to justice. Traversing unforgiving terrain through Cherokee territory, she is severely wounded and her younger brother killed when they are attacked by a catamount. She is rescued and cared for by Malcolm Craig, who is in hiding for reasons of his own. Eventually, they reach the fort only to find more horrific troubles and deaths. A final meeting with her enemy ends in vengeance if not justice. The plot is dense and filled with violence and unremitting pain. Catie is not a perfect heroine; she doubts her decisions and believes that, like the last of the three Fates of Greek myth, she is the instrument of death. The author has wisely chosen to forgo the use of Colonial-era dialect, but all the elements of the tale are perfectly in keeping with the setting and time.
Patient and sophisticated readers will find the story compelling and deeply moving and its heroine unforgettable. (author’s note, sources) (Historical fiction. 15-18)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61117-429-8
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Univ. of South Carolina
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2014
Exhilarating, romantic, and illuminating; has the potential to turn casual readers into Tudor history buffs.
Hampton Court curator Worsley’s debut novel for teens digs into the danger that lies just beneath the glamour of Henry VIII’s court.
Newly trained maid-in-waiting Elizabeth Camperdowne is sent to court to find a rich husband and save her father, Lord Anthony, from financial ruin. Wild-natured, red-haired white Elizabeth and her “luxuriantly plump and sloe-eyed” cousin Katherine Howard arrive at court in time for the lecherous Henry’s marriage to wife No. 4, Anne of Cleves, whom they will attend. After Henry sends Anne into exile for failing to consummate their marriage, the narrative proceeds to follow Katherine’s rise from mistress to fifth wife and her subsequent execution for adultery. Elizabeth, the fictional narrator, must remain vigilant; one wrong move can cost her her life, but she does have a choice, which gives her more power than she thought she possessed. She can seize the opportunity to save her family by becoming the king’s mistress, or she can risk everything to be with the man she loves, bastard-born page Ned Barsby. The novel is a satisfying blend of fact and artistic liberty: the women’s duties as maids of the court are drawn from history, but Katherine’s illicit lover is an amalgam of her two real-life lovers. The retention of British spellings and the inclusion of lesser-known customs of the period add further authenticity.
Exhilarating, romantic, and illuminating; has the potential to turn casual readers into Tudor history buffs. (author’s note) (Historical fiction. 15 & up)Pub Date: March 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7636-8806-6
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2017
Horrific atrocities—and the ghastly realities of any war—seen through the eyes of a child with heartbreaking cognitive...
The education of a young Nazi, from fetus to 9-year-old.
One of the lesser-known Nazi atrocities, the Lebensborn program, aimed to increase the numbers of so-called Aryans; the program encouraged sexual contact between SS officers and unmarried (sufficiently blonde) white women while also Germanizing 200,000 kidnapped European children. Max is a fictional Lebensborn child, born in 1936 of unmarried parents. He begins his narrative in utero, determined to be born on April 20, the Führer’s birthday. Platinum blond and with icy blue eyes and a perfectly Aryan dolicephalic head, he plans to become an ideal Nazi, full of Draufgängertum—a hotheaded lack of self-preservation. As a fetus and an infant, Max’s point of view is that of an adult true believer, full of grotesque crudeness, endless sexual violence, and unremitting anti-Semitism. He’s eager to serve the Reich, even as a toddler, and he gladly helps his eugenicist keepers identify appropriately Nordic-looking children to kidnap. Though he’s intellectually convinced of Hitler’s philosophies, Max’s visceral discomfort with Nazi atrocities expresses itself through stomach troubles (described in scatological detail). A dysfunctional friendship with a blond, blue-eyed teenage Polish boy with a terrible secret only accelerates Max’s poor digestion. After a slow start, readers will find Max’s story reminiscent of M.T. Anderson’s National Book Award–winning The Pox Party (2006).
Horrific atrocities—and the ghastly realities of any war—seen through the eyes of a child with heartbreaking cognitive dissonance pack a wallop. (Historical fiction. 15-18)Pub Date: March 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62672-071-8
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Neal Porter/Roaring Brook
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
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